


One to Remember

by AccioInvisibilityCloak



Category: Nothing Much to Do
Genre: Gen, John being awful basically, sort of stream of consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 04:32:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2296775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AccioInvisibilityCloak/pseuds/AccioInvisibilityCloak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Donaldson has always been a quiet kid, but after years hiding in his half-brother’s shadow, he decides it’s time to take Prince Pedro down a peg. A fic exploring the inner workings of John’s mind and his motivations as he plans and plots to ruin lives and make his name known outside of the title “Pedro’s half-bro”. Covers the series up to the beginning of “Hero’s Birthday”.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One to Remember

**Author's Note:**

> So here it is, my first non-Team Blessed fic! A little look into what John's motivations could be, and what shape the rest of his evil plot could take. Not saying this is what his plan really is, but this is one of my theories. Warning for possible spoilers, and definitely for some light swearing and a few ableist and gendered slurs, which I would never use for any reason other than if I think a (completely in the wrong) character would say them. And John’s contempt for everyone around him, at least in this fic, makes him one of those types of characters to me. I'm considering expanding this into a short series of fics from the POVs of each of our antagonists, so we'll see what happens with that.
> 
> Please do not copy/duplicate this work.
> 
> I mean seriously. You're kidding. You're going to steal and repost my work and you pick this one? Puh-lease. It has like seven hits and was canonballed a million different ways, buzz off, reposters.

Prince Pedro, they call him. Pedro, prince of everyone’s heart, top of every class, star of every show (figuratively, because he can’t act worth a damn, heart on his sleeve, the fool). He’s the lord of Messina, and John is but the lowly serf.

Which is partially by choice. John has to admit that he hates most of the people at this foul school anyway. They’re all brainless sheep, perfectly content to sit in the golden boy’s shadow, the latest pop songs playing in their wake as they drift to the football pitch to watch that pitiful conglomeration of teenage boys they call a team. John tells himself he’s disgusted by all of them, but it still hurts, every time he finds himself alone in the shadows, friendless.

There’s Robbie Borachio, of course, he’s an old mate- but he’s useless the minute Meg appears, and John’s alone again.

There’s also Cora. She’s never left him, but sometimes it gets annoying, having a silly shadow prancing after you all the time. It’s obvious she has a crush on him, but he has no time for that clingy sappy stuff. He kissed her once, and it was nice, nothing special, and by the next day he was sick of her, but still she follows his every whim. She even helped inspire the Plan, the great sequence of whispers and shouts he has finally devised to bring Prince Pedro to his knees.

John’s mother died when he was five. He doesn’t remember very much about her, but he misses her every day. When he was seven, his dad ran into Pedro’s mum again after many years apart, and the rest is history, as the now-married Donaldson parents like to say. Laura was always nice to John, but he didn’t want pity and he definitely never asked for a new mother and a perfect older half-brother. He just wanted everything to stay the same, just him and Dad, like always. Instead, everything had changed. John still hasn’t forgiven any of them for it.

He’s been a stranger in his own house for years now. He’s been a nobody at school for as long as he can remember, no special talents to be seen apart from his good grades, no teacher calling his name at attendance without first asking if he was Pedro’s little brother, and was he as gifted and wonderful to have in class as young Peter Donaldson who they liked so much? John has to watch as his brother goes to parties with his huge group of friends, scores winning goal after winning goal on the football team that cut John after the first round of tryouts, and wins the student leader elections without even lifting a finger. Every accomplishment to Pedro’s name is one more angry stone in John’s pocket, weighting him down, highlighting his failures and faults. The most hated phrase in the English language to John’s ear: “Why can’t you be more like your brother?”

John is in Year 12 now and no one even looks for him in Pedro’s shadow anymore. He can’t take this much longer. He sits in class and he takes notes on his brother’s charmed and charming life; he sits at home and blasts the loudest music he has so he won’t have to listen to Dad and Laura fawning over their perfect oldest, or hear Pedro’s stupid friends laughing in the room down the hall.

And then he realizes something. It might be more valuable to him to actually listen.

Hidden on the Prince’s threshold, John hears all about Claudio’s pathetic little crush, all about Pedro’s offer to talk to her at the party, and a plan hatches. It won’t get the job done completely, but it’s a start.

Claudio always gets everything John wants. He’s like Pedro that way, looking down his nose at John and dismissing him like the merest pest. Claudio the popular, the handsome, the newest Messina Football MVP, and now he thinks he has a chance with Hero Duke? John laughs just thinking about that. It’ll be easy, using her to turn Pedro and Claudio against each other. That’s phase 1.

Hero was kind to John once, back in year 9 when they were new to Messina High. She’d helped him pick up his school things from the floor after a year 12 boy had tripped him, and he’d had hope that maybe this was his year, that he would finally make some friends and get the recognition he deserved. But she had gone back to ignoring him by the next day, not even a glance in his direction. She’s always been the social butterfly, even though she’s almost as reserved as he is. He’s hated her ever since then, hated her for seeing him and then promptly returning him to invisibility.

So John doesn’t mind screwing either of them over. In fact, he delights in it. It’s only too easy to plant the seed of doubt in Cowboy Claud’s gullible ear, and he knows the idiot bought it by the way he storms out of the party a half hour later.

By the next day, perfect Pedro has set the record straight about the party. Of course. He can’t even let John have this one thing, his revenge. No, he and that Beatrice Duke actually post an explanation on the Internet, and John has to go back to the drawing board. Pedro does seem awfully fond of Beatrice, and she’s meddled with John’s plans through that stupid video blog for the last time. She doesn’t know it of course, but she’ll regret that soon enough.

In fact, he really has to thank her. Beatrice’s videos have been useful to him, a handy guide to the goings-on in his brother’s social circle, and they give him the idea to watch everything. There are several kids in Pedro’s circle of friends who have started making videos on the heels of Beatrice and Hero Duke, and John watches every single one. Except those inane Year 9s pretending to be detectives. Their show is so laughably bad that he stops watching after one episode.

Everyone else, though, spills their secrets to their cameras like so many coins falling right into John’s waiting hands. They’re making this so _easy_.

It’s only when Robbie tells him that he and Meg have broken up again that John figures out what to do. Cora blurts out that it was because Robbie’s a cheater and Meg is furious at him for it. Her comment sparks another idea, and John gets back to work on the Plan. Robbie is actually the one who suggests they use Meg, John suspects because he wants an excuse to get her back. Pathetic. Useful, but pathetic. This just might work.

John has been watching Benedick Hobbes’s vlogs, and he’s seen in them that Claudio has a weakness. Of course he does, and John can use that. How did Claudio react when he thought Pedro had stolen Hero away? Clearly, the older boy has a jealousy problem compounded by insecurity. He seems just as surprised as John himself that Hero would give him the time of day. There is John’s opening, the place where he can drive a wedge.

He is listening, always. One day, John overhears Pedro and the guys teasing Benedick about his crush as they film a video in Pedro’s room. He knows enough from having watched all those awful vlogs to figure out almost immediately that the fiery girl they’re talking about is Beatrice Duke. Although it has little to do with his plan, John files this information away in his head just in case.

He makes sure the accusation is on film. It couldn’t be more perfect timing when Hero’s text calls Claudio and Benedick away one afternoon, leaving the camera for him and Pedro. This is pure coincidence. My Hero, he thinks sarcastically, as he sits down to break the difficult news to his dear big bro.

When Claudio sees the video, John knows it, because he hears Pedro on the phone trying to calm his friend down. John grins and slinks away to call Robbie back.

Robbie performs beautifully. John has never been so overjoyed as he is when he sees Pedro and Claudio’s ashen, furious faces in the darkened Duke yard that night. He and his fool brother have to hold Claudio back from running up to the house and ruining everything, but no matter. John grins as Robbie and Meg’s moans of pleasure float out the open window to permeate the night, and Pedro and Claudio cringe. Worth every last dollar to see these idiots squirm.

Little notes and text messages from John about Hero’s cheating ways keep Claudio on edge for two weeks, and John can see the way he holds himself apart from Hero when they’re together now, his handsome face twisted into a permanent scowl. Robbie makes sure to pop up wherever Hero goes, just to keep Claudio’s suspicions up. Brilliant.

It’s almost _painful_ , how easy it is to convince the Prince’s noble court to upload that “Hypothetically” video. John is counting the days to the big party with glee. This is going to be so good.

The best part is, no one will be able to prove John had anything to do with any of it. Claudio will lose control at the party, if John has to break the final straw himself. Claudio will be the one to ruin everything, and he’ll be miserable when the dust settles, and anything that makes Claudio miserable is a success in John’s book. Hero Duke will be miserable too. Beatrice Duke will be livid, and her cousin’s misery is hers to share, and if Beatrice is upset, Benedick will be too, and the lovesick fool will almost definitely take Hero’s side in whatever fallout there is. If he hesitates, John can compel him to betray Pedro and Claud, because love makes you weak, and thanks to vlogs and clever hiding places, John knows Benedick’s heart. Once the core of the group is dismantled, the rest will drop away too, Balthazar and Ursula and poor clueless Meg.

So that’s the plan. All of Pedro’s best friends will be separated, alone, broken. And it will be Pedro’s fault for setting Claudio up with a lying whore, so he’ll be beating himself up, angry and sad and confused. He’ll be completely and utterly isolated, the way that John’s been for years now. Simple, elegant, the perfect revenge.

And when the time is right, John will throw the final stone. He has Benedick’s YouTube password thanks to his eavesdropping, so he can upload his own video blog. He’ll prove that the whole cheating scandal was a setup. He’ll reveal that the three hundred bucks in Robbie’s pocket now, actually came from Pedro’s own savings, from his summer job. (Stealing it was a piece of cake, and Robbie won’t blab. He still owes John for the fire alarm, after all.) John will show the clips where Pedro was chatting up Hero at the party, and the clip he filmed on his phone of Pedro and Claudio sneaking into the Dukes’ yard. He’ll explain how someone wanted Hero for himself, how he vowed revenge when she rejected him and Claud asked her out instead. How Prince Pedro Donaldson was willing to destroy his friends’ lives over a little rejection, and how his half-brother, the forgotten little nobody, finally exposed his devious plot.

Everyone at Messina will hate Pedro for this. Dad and Laura will be positively apoplectic. Beatrice will never speak to him again. Claudio and Benedick will never forgive him, and Leo Duke will almost certainly kick him off the football team. Pedro will be a pariah and a villain, and John will be a hero for exposing him, and then we’ll see who wears the Prince’s crown.

On the evening of the sixteenth, John walks into the party with a smile, nodding to all of Pedro’s precious mates. He can’t wait for the show to begin. This is going to be fun.

“Oh, hello, Hero. Long time no see,” he says when he sees her. “Oh, and happy birthday. I hope it’ll be one to remember.”

Little Miss Perfect can be sure that it will be.


End file.
